Twisted Fate
by Sarandipity
Summary: AU. What if Irina recruited Sydney before Sloane or Jack? *C.7. Truths Reveled.*
1. The Beginning

Title – Twisting Fate

Summery – What if Sydney was recruited by another agency before SD-6 or the CIA? 

Type – Romance/Drama

Relationships – Vaughn/Sydney-----Sydney/Sark 

A/N: It going to go a bit fast, this is the introduction so…yeah. Anyway this is an idea that I came up with after Jack told Sydney that he was going to recruit her after college but Sloane got her first, but what if Irina got to Sydney first! Ha, Ha! We have an AU! And a reasonable explanation to get Sark in the picture with Sydney!

The Beginning - 

During the roles of changing laws and political assassination two races came from the underground, Political Anarchist or Worldly Conspirer. Both labels are evil drenched in blood from the wars of good and bad, in the grand name for the country of independence and freedom. The United States was in war, maybe not identified, maybe not known, but it was at war everyday. The country named for independence, founded for freedom was neither autonomous nor liberated. It was a jail for those who knew and it was their jail for those who made it. 

There were two sides to this war and they had to be one of them. Sometimes it was a choice, a rebellion but sometimes it was forced into their mind as the greater side. Life was changing for America, new threats and empowerment of evil has surfaced in the faces of political leaders. People slaughtered, hurt, killed, lost, and loathed, all in the name of freedom and independence.

Sydney Bristow has seen this, encounter it, lived with it everyday until she lost herself in familiar eyes. She was one of them, an anarchist, a Marxist, a democrat, a republican, and even a socialist. She believed in false pretences told by confidants who tricked her and fooled her. Then tested her honesty when they told lies of their own.

She had her own war though than the underground rivalry of agencies below, she had her own life outside of politics and power hungry men. She was a perfect student, a perfect woman to marry, a perfect mother if she wanted any of those things and she did. 

In the beautiful day of June 13, 1994, the year when the grudge music faded from the surface and the misconception of Green Day's crossover from independent to material came about. The year was anyone could wear a plain shirt and jeans, no long feathered hair, no swatches, and definitely no father. Jack Bristow was a modest man whose work came before his family. But there wasn't a family; a family had to have three people a Father, a Mother, and a Daughter. There were only two so it defies the logic of family. There was no mother, Laura Bristow died or abounded Sydney when she was six. The misconception of either the way of death and abandonment came from her father's words.

Her mind faded and reminisced the windows of their new home in Los Angeles, nothing like West Virginia. Her fourteen-year-old body shifted though the rooms filled with cardboard boxes as the sun orange light transcended though the glass of windows. _"Do you even know where she was going that night?"_ Sydney took the box cutter and started to cut the duck tape in fast flicks of her elbow. _"Coming home from work."_ She opened the last box of all the possessions she could sneak from her father eyes. _"That late? Sydney she was leaving us." _Beautiful boxes of nothing but string pearls, velvety cocktail dresses, her mother's schedule book, and ultimately the picture album. _"Mom would never do that, she loved me!" _She took the frame from nadir of the box and placed it on the dresser. _"And I thought she loved me too, but she had another life before me. She wanted so many things, your mother, but she couldn't have them." _She gazed at the picture in classic colors of black and white, the days at their beautiful colonial house replaced by a family house in the suburbs. _"Because I was born."_ Her mother hair was at it longest point, in waves down to her waist and there was Sydney at six on her lap looking out of the window full of fireworks, smiling_. "Sydney-- your mother loved you but she loved her old life more." _Those days were the only times where she could remember sleeping all night.

Sydney snapped from her memory and looked up where kids were blasting Sheryl Crow 'All I wanna do' as their graduation song. Dancing around with the parchment paper rolled with a red ribbon in their hands with white satin robes and caps with a blue fringe entwisted with gold thread. But she wasn't dancing in those groups instead she gathered her paper for her valedictorian speech and shook hands with her teachers and before she left with her nanny. But one hand shook harder, unfamiliar to all the hands shook on the podium.

"Miss Bristow?" His thick Russian accent came though the music and sounded beautiful enriched with sophistication. Sydney was startled but resented showing it, she smiled and answered at his addressing 

"Yes." He placed his card in front of her; she took the thick black parchment paper with white ink stamped into it, an uneven amounts of number equaling a phone extension.

"My name is Demtri Russek, I'm with the International Agency of Intelligence. My employer is very interested in you for a job placement, why don't you give us a call?" Her eyebrow folded in perplexity. 

"What's the job?"

"A agent for an Intelligence Agency." He said

"What you mean like the CIA?" Sydney asked

"Not entirely but most of the positions are in likeness to the CIA."

"Are you kidding me?" She asked

"No we are quite serious. We've been watching you, and you interest us very much so."

"I don't understand, I don't have a college degree-" He waved his hand to stop her, he smile lightly at her bewilderment to a job offering so soon in her life.

"We want to get you before anyone else does," Sydney smiled as she took it as a joke but it was nothing but. "Please just give us a call if you agree, my employer would be thrilled." She came to speak again but he interrupted her again. "I must go, please don't speak of this to anyone, I cannot stress this enough…Oh, Miss Bristow my employer sends congratulation as valedictorian." 

***

Her mind bottled with so many questions that month, she didn't know many things she could do that day but sit at home reading Jane Eyre as the card kept her mark on the words. She wasn't a popular girl, she wasn't invited to parties are went out dancing. Instead she sneaked a bottle of Merlot from her Nanny, which also qualified as a graduation present. A tall large glass of red wine and a white candle light in the edge of the room next to her mother's picture and music playing in the background changing from Etta James to Ella Fitzgerald.

Instead of reading the book she just starred at the piece of paper dangling between her figure tips, it rough edges and it uniqueness in color. Black was a strange color to have for a business card, but this didn't seem like a nine to five day job like other father's. She mused at it for hours on end, going on carefully on the decision. She wanted to be a teacher, and go to UCLA like her mother did in the city. But ever since that memory of moving into the house years ago and the discussion with her father that day and now her dreams had been stained and tarnished. Sydney didn't want to honor a life that was loathed by the woman, who lived it, but Sydney really wanted to be a teacher, she always loved babysitting.

"What should I do Mom? Should I take the job?" She mused in thin air. Her father wasn't going to pay for college after talks of her career, she didn't want to ask the nanny's advice because she didn't very much care for it since she wasn't in the picture. She took the phone from the dresser and turned down the music playing softly, she took another sip of the wine to stabilize her future.

Ring. Ring. Click. "Hello?" Her voice echoed though the line

"Your name please…" Answered a woman's slight accented German voice. 

"Sydney Bristow." 

"One moment." Click.

"Hello, Miss Bristow I'm so glad you called me and this soon." His Russian voice ruffed as he was still at his office collecting paperwork.

"What exactly does the International Agency of Intelligence do?" Sydney mused

"We collect intelligence of illegal affairs of different countries specializing in the sales of weapons, narcotics and artifacts by espionage." He told her flat out straight and she was automatically taken back by his honesty.

"Spying?"

"Well yes."

"You want me to be a spy?"

"An agent it that field, yes." 

"Wow." Sydney spoke.

"Can I ask you something now?"

"Surly."

"Why did you call me?" His voice clearer than before,

"A little excitement? I don't exactly know. Well looking at my choices, I realized I didn't have any that were realistic as this one." She commented

"Don't worry Miss Bristow, my employer sent instructions that you would have special requirements with this job and were happy to oblige." He told her.

"What kind of requirements? And who exactly is your…" She was cut off by his voice again.

"We should talk off the phone, why don't you come over to my office tomorrow morning? Say about seven thirty. Meet me at Welting Field Insurance and Associates on twenty third and fifth. Good bye Miss Bristow." 

With that he hung up leaving Sydney confused in compelled way and he dialed again, but a different number and in a secluded voice he answered. "Your right she called." And hung up leaving the office to go home from a hard days work of recruiting other soon to be agents.

The morning she told her nanny she was out to the city for a day trip. She dressed in her white shirt and black slacks, nothing too casual but nothing too occupational. She thought this was some kind of joke since this was a politic related job, not in insurance. But as she entered the building she asked the secretary for Mr. Russek and directed her to the back room where she sat for a couple of minutes intimidated by the sounds of the men talking in Russian outside the door. But suddenly she took notice of the manila folder thick as 'Moby dick'. 

She turned and opened the folder and saw her school senior portrait with her mother's pearls and her long blonde hair flowing evenly on both her shoulders in a black long sleeved shirt and a navy blue background. She turned the picture and saw her school report, her birth certificate from a hospital in Charleston, all her medical history, her grades and then looking at the copy of a school report she wrote two months ago and a note attached to the smooth paper. 

__

Subject: 34b-521 from writing sample her handwriting shows insecurity towards others, but also a dominating side if threaten, generosity, curiousness, and rare clumsiness if intimidated. Rare stroke of subject's letter 'T' shows great power in learning and instructing. 

Sydney was taken aback, they had everything on her even going though her doctor files which she though were classified. She was getting herself into something that shook her body to the bone. But she was more surprised as they describe her handwriting as if they knew her, and all the details were extremely incorrect. Well they did get the curiousness correctly when she did thought about it but she tried to ignore all the others. As she turned the page and saw the cutouts of newspaper trimmings of her mother's accident, and that almost made her to the point of leaving until she leant over to the door to hear the conversations and footsteps getting closer. 

She strained to hear and leaned her body to the right to see out the door and listen closely but instead her nervous fingers lost their stability and clumsy fell onto the floor with a plop. They turned around and saw her trying to get back up, she smiling nervously as her face blushed to the point of a rose. As they entered to room, two of the men smiling as she got back up onto the chair since they already know of her 'clumsiness if intimidated'. 

"Good Morning Miss Bristow, I hope traffic wasn't terrible." Mr. Russek said

"I took the bus." Sydney informed them, they took their pens from the side and started to write what she told them. "What going on?"

"Well at this point, we would like to ask you a few questions before we start informing you on your job." He explained and she nodded her head stiffly as she saw the pens rotating in their fingers. 

"Would you rather take the bus or drive?" One of the men asked, she nervously took the hair and brushed it behind her ear and smiled at the awkward question. 

"Um, drive I guess." She answered

"Why?"

"Well, I guess the large crowd, I mean it great when there's traffic and it on the environment. But…" they took down more notes on that statement.

"Anti-social." One of the men mused

"Not really, just that people don't interest me on a bus, I rather meet people at a bookstore or a coffee house than on bus. I like to met people in a place I would be found in."

"Interest based."

"I guess that it." Sydney figured

"What do you feel about the United States government?"

"Well sometimes I feel that it corrupt and immoral but I'm loyal to it." Sydney answered, but immediately fell back at the answer in regret. 

"Please specify why?" One them asked

Sydney waited to find the right words to describe what she really did feel about the government. She didn't want to come off as an anarchist but she wanted to be truthful at the same time. "Well some of their decisions seem wrong to me, but I wouldn't speak against it since they probably know more about the problem and fixing it than I would." Sydney explained and they quickly jotted on the lines nodded mused by her answer. 

"Do you understand if you take this job you will hold a secret life?"

"Yes."

After an hour of odd questions that filled the room Sydney still felt stiff and bottled up telling them the armor shine of it. Never going to personal but she didn't know to avoid not to since they knew everything, they knew about her mother, and that bothered her the most. She cooperated with some of their questions and sometimes asking them the meaning of the stupid questions like what side do you sleep on at night or her favorite the profuse question of Pepsi or Coke. But the smile of hysteria from the odd questions faded as they landed on territory that should never be embarked by a stranger let alone a stranger taking notes on it.

"What is your relationship with your father?"

"You want me to answer that question?" She huffed

"Please Miss Bristow."

"I refuse, I've been-"She neglected

"Miss Bristow please just answer the question."

"No, I have been patient and cooperative with all your bizarre inquiries. But I will not allow you to ask me any kind of question involving my relationship with my father. You might have a right to know, but not right I know of. I'm sorry I cannot answer that question." She said firm with esteem as they smiled and jotted down the notes. 

"I assure you Miss Bristow we meant no disrespect." Mr. Russek said, Sydney nodded not saying anything more. "Why don't I show you around, before we start going?" Sydney sat up and all three of the men did, before they turn to leave she gave them a nice firm handshake and let Mr. Russek show her to the back of the building where it seemed like one big gym with countless body moving and seating in. Equipment used but newly bought, mats and water bottles scattered everywhere.

"This is where you'll be staying for eight months learning in all of fighting skills possibly imagined. If you take the job." He told her, she saw all the men being trained but nothing but men and she thought this seemed a little weird so she questioned it.

"Well we have a new employer who seems that woman would do a better job, so we're recruiting woman over men now."

"Who is this employer person?"

"We nicknamed him 'the man', he has control over every branch. I'm sorry I rushing, what you just joined is a black ops agency called K-Directorate. During World War I, Treaty of Versailles privately came up with 'the council' to look upon the countries that to illegal transactions." He explained.

"Isn't that like the UN?" She asked

"Well they do it publicly, but the main difference here is we use spying as our way of investigating, and we do a little recovery of artifacts that are unknown to this date that must go secretly over threat of world dominance." He explained, she nodded again in understanding. "But one thing is that there are chairs on the council, ten to be exact, each one having a little more power than the other. So our employer is in charge of the council and in control of the ten branches of K-Directorate and all transactions." 

"But doesn't that seem a little…much?" She asked

"That the thing, The Man hasn't been very interested in the Los Angeles department until now." He explained

"Have you ever met the man before?" She humored

"Yes, I was one of his screeners during his recruitment." Sydney wondered what the man was like, if he was some knight in shining armor or just a regular bold man behind a desk.

"What if I don't want to take the job?" Sydney humored again.

"You must not speak of this to anyone, as I said this was a black ops which this agency rely on its secrecy." He told her.

"Why me though?"

"My employer has a special interest in you, and he gave me special instructions for you." He took a long white envelope from his inner coat pocket and gave it to her, she open the unsealed fold and saw a white typing paper with the address of UCLA.

__

Miss Bristow

We're hear to inform you that your tuition had been paid full including house and board. Hope to see you in the fall.

Roger Milder

Director of Admissions

She looked at the paper with bewilderment as she knew she couldn't pay for college that why she was applying for this job. That was part of her need for this job, but this was beyond weird.

"Oh course, we can also cancel this and refund it." He said

"No…I take the job." She put the piece of paper in her purse and he smiled.

***

During those eight months she went to school at UCLA as a freshman and the same time going though every martial arts known, and the some that weren't she was physically and mentally exhausted. She came home and collapsed at the end of the day but they kept on pushing her as she kept on succeeding. Soon she was in the office doing paperwork, and she could see the pay off. All her fat was missing and now her body was slender and lean with a new admiration and high regard she couldn't help but know was present. She even made some friends along the way; Francie Calfo and Will Tippin who were both intimidated by her sometimes. She was different, special, and now she knew why, she was accepted.

That all what Sydney wanted from this job, for financial support though college, a family that she evolved, and a future though acceptance. That what Sydney always wanted, just an emotional state when she wasn't going to cry because she was lonely. But she knew this couldn't last forever, that she had to pay a price soon for her choice.

She came into the office where the meeting was going to be held, she looked at her watch and saw she was right on time but they came in late. She saw Mr. Russek and another man with the Armani suit and blonde short locks combed messily and fourteen caret gold cufflinks, he was intimidating but when he saw her he looked back in mist of her beauty and smiled evilly. She smiled back at him, they sat down after they shook her hand and addressed themselves. Sydney placed a strand of hair behind her ear from the locks that escaped from her messy French bun and he took note of that.

"Mr. Sark." He said

"Hello."

"Well, Miss Bristow, we were informed that you received a job position in the CIA." Sark said, his English accent was too far beautiful to sound. She remember the day at the UCLA campus writing part of her thesis when the man came over and gave her a business card almost being hit by Frisbees.

"Yes."

"You brought this to the attention of Mr. Russek, did you not?" He asked, I nodded. He smiled at her beautiful and starred at her necklace of pearls. "Well those are quite exquisite on you." He remarked she put her hand up to above her collarbone and touched her pearls, she smiled in admirement.

"They were my mother's." She told him

"Well their stunning." His eyes never left hers as he just starred in amazement of her loveliness. Seconds went by as Mr. Russek coughed in tension of the room and her gathered up his thoughts. "Well we were implying that we might use this position to get you into the system."

"I don't understand." Sydney hand traveled down to her lap of her pinstripe black slack never laying her hand back on her silk red blouse. 

"Miss Bristow you know that there are illegal actions take place in all agency of the world, some of those agencies are imposing as real CIA branches, and we have men in these agency to keep tabs on the actions."

"You want me to be a mole?" She questioned

"Yes, and during that time your handler would be Sark."

"Oh." She breathed

"It be a pleasure to work with you Miss, Bristow." Sark said

***

So here she was as a double agent, in the world of SD-6. She dreaded the same about of training but made no notice of her advancement in the field. The same about of the first year of being a freshman went to being a sophomore in Literature studying theories of science and history's writings. 

Her meetings with Sark had turned into weekly or daily events. He smiled always out of the ordinary for her, gave her some hope when she was dead tired of going though another round of training. He gave her cocky smiles, sometimes she would to aggravated with his snotty attitude. But he was already under her skin. Even if they couldn't be seen in public, he talked to her like no one else did like if he knew all her secrets, her childhood, and all her desires. 

Thing she didn't know, he did.

And then she was emerged in the world of intelligence work, as she came in the office from two years and on a mission. Her only mission here, at SD-6 working for K-Directorate. 

She came in though the glass doors of his office the same amount of curiosity she had on her face as she did when she entered K-Directorate. She saw the man who ran the cell of the alliance his eyes as cold and empty like coal, she knew he was a snake and she was going to be a thorn in his back. 

"So this is Sydney Bristow, I heard a lot of things about you." Sloane spoke and shook her hand; she smiled even if she felt strange about this mission.

But things would go on.

So it begins…

A/N: I need a beta reader anyone out there? And please review…more to come


	2. Acid Wash

Thanks to April, my 'beta' reader. Her suggestions are warmly considered

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chapter 2

Her footsteps didn't make more of noise than she expected. She walked though the hallway filled with light from above in fluorescent rows of glass. It was blinding, the room was pure white and gave an illusion that it never ended, the hall would just go on and on. The only source of color was her skin. She was dressed in a full white catsuit covering every part of her body except her eyes to camouflage herself into her surroundings.

She stopped at the point of the camera up on the ceiling waiting for it to pass and making her way down breathing into the white plastic oxygen mask. She started to run, as she knew she had 3.4 seconds to go in and get the disk and get out. She quickly ran to the disk making sure to hold on to her mask, not to breathe the chemicals that were now released in the air eating away at her skin. 

She could feel she skin burning like acid as she walked out in the hallway and taking off the suit that was thinner against her body. She felt her arm was bleeding though her pores, it looked like a large rash that she scratched until raw. 

She cursed under her breath as she adjusted the little shorts and tank top putting the disk in her bra. She walked from the room, ignoring the many stares of her in shape body and her bleeding skin. She walked outside and went into the garden and handed to the man trimming the edges. He quickly handed it back in a few seconds and she continued down the garden's path to the van.

But she cursed under her breath again, this time in Russian words that were subconsciously forced out without knowledge. She saw the three rent-a-cops running down the path, she was too tired for this, she thought. She started to run as they chased not far behind her.

"Halt! Halten Sie rechts dort auf!" They raised their hands in the air, pointing to her, and she rolled her eyes and started off into a sprint. She turned on her earpiece and spoke under her breath, running on the small rocks as the path.

"Dixon I need extraction." She bolted her hands in a pump making sure all of her oxygen was evenly impelled.

"Alright Syd, take a left by the gate and go straight until you see 'West Village Pest Control'" He said, she turned the ear piece off and started down the left of the gate. She made her legs pump faster as she heard gun shot. Her skin burned every time she moved the skin feeling worse than peeling sunburn. 

During the time of her employment she became a SD-6's best and brightest agent. Even Sloane had his favor over Sydney than any other agent in the field. Sloane trusted Sydney with the imperative operations and Sydney took the advantage and kept doing her work, conspiring with Sark though. A quantity of missions 'failed' some went devoid of completion, all that mattered were she was in as the mole getting to places others dreamed of.

She saw the van and sighed in relief but than she was picked up by the waist and pulled into the back of another van. She was surprised and scared, but she remained calm as she saw the four men in ski mask unarmed. 

"Who are you?" Sydney hissed

Suddenly he took off his mask and saw what she feared that existed, she didn't know what to say as she saw the narrow eyes, jagged chin, broad shoulders, and his steel colored hair. She sat back in amazement and opened her mouth letting her up lip to be it on her lower teeth; she let her skin sink in letting blood escaped from the chapped skin. 

"Daddy?" Her voice trembling.

"Sydney, listen to me carefully, I need the disk."

All these years as he went off the weirdest places just for Jennings Aerospace Incorporated to retail airplane parts he was in supplementary countries. Who knew whom he worked for? But he knew she was SD-6, if he knew she was K- Directorate she would be six feet under since all agencies abhorrent the pesky agency. Instead she was alive with a man she knew nothing about, in a domicile in Paris.

"You what?" Sydney sneered

"SD-6 isn't the part of the CIA you believe, it the enemy you believe you you're fighting." He told her, she took it as a shook mendaciously 

"Who do you work for?" She hissed from her bleeding lips.

"The real CIA." He said

"You were never an airplane parts salesman, weren't you?" She knew the answer and didn't even look up for an indication of any retort.

"No,"

"Did Mom know?" She looked up, a question she had to know for Mom's sake.

"I need the disk." He spoke; suddenly he regretted the words that seemed so harsh for the unexpected truth. Her mouth opened and shook her head not understanding how he could be so insensitive and callous.

"Answer my question!" She scolded.

"She knew." His harden expression gave away and she thought about Mom and how she could lived in that world. She knew she couldn't. All those days her mother tucked her in when she asked for Daddy, because she knew Daddy could scare the monsters under her bed away. But her mother tucked her in with a smile and told her all when she met her father. Which wasn't a big story for a four-year-old, though just because her mother told her these stories of real romance with her thick accent coming though. Those were the nights when she saw her Russian features.

Sydney let her back touch the cold metal of the van to her back and let the words sink in. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeper letting her relax from her racing heart.

"You're hurt." He told her.

"It's a minor burn." Sydney scoffed.

"Your whole left arm is burned!" He went for the first aid box while she began to look at him like he was a stranger, since this came from the air, Sydney still couldn't swallow it. He began to bandage her left arm but Sydney didn't take him as the hero he was when he picked her up and placed her on the counter, kissing and wrapping her wounds as her mother wiped away her salty tears.

But she looked at the man who use to be her daddy, the man who would scare away the monsters in her closet and gave her kisses of affection when she was sad. His look as he tended her wounds once again was perplexed and befuddled.

"What?" Sydney spat.

"Every time I touch your skin it bleeds." He said

"Don't burn's bleed?" Sydney said.

"Not the kind you endured, it an acid burn." He concluded.

"So I bandage it up and put some ointment on it." Sydney let it pass, but suddenly dizziness passed in front of her eyes with black spots. She didn't let her appearance reveal it, but simply closed her eyes as he was applying dressing to her burn. He was talking, she knew her surroundings was words but she didn't hear it. Her forehead covered in glistening sweat as her breathing increased from her dark red lips that use to have the pigment of pink. Her chest began to cramp as it started to get hard for her to even swallow.

"Sydney hold still." Her father swore under his breath, as he knew her movements weren't intentional. He came up to her face as she collapsed into a seizure moving her body as her uncontrolled force made it impossible to settle her unto the floor of the van.

"Sydney! Can you hear me! Sydney!" The two other men that were stage there for technical reasons help her get settled.

Before Jack knew it he was being awaken from his sleep in an uncomfortable chair still in one of his mission uniforms waiting and hoping for his daughter's notice of well being. He had since washed his hands from Sydney's bloodstained on his skin, in every crevasse of his prints and nails. That almost made Jack Bristow faint washing away blood he helped to create on his own hands. 

He had told Sloane that he received Intel after Sydney left of the chemicals that were released into the air if the alarm was triggered. Sloane had bought it when he told him that he went to notify Sydney but he had been too late. He didn't feel so guilty about lying or telling Sydney the truth, he knew she could keep his secret. But when the doctors came in with her things, her clothing, her underpinnings and the disk. He took the disk to the CIA official to get it copied, but when another man came asking for the disk he learned that man who asked for it earlier was K- Directorate. He still had the disk; it just was now there was three agencies in the Intel. 

"_Dr. Stewart wanted in the ER. Dr. Stewart wanted in the ER_." The announcement came busting in his ear like a horn as he looked up at the doctors coming from the intensive care unit, their scrubs drenched in crimson liquid. He hoped and prayed her doctors didn't come out like that. He couldn't loose another person he loved more than life.

"Mr. Bristow?" He looked up at the white scrubbed nurse, and he just couldn't bring himself to look in her eyes.

"That…that me," he choked out.

"Sydney going to pull though," He could feel his mussels relax and a smiled on his face as he nodded understanding. "But she not out of the woods yet. She going to be find she going to be in the hospital for a while, her blood pressure has to get above normal and has to be given oxygen since her vega nerve has slowed down her heart beat quite a bit. With the burn, she will be given antibiotics until it heals, but it will in a couple of weeks." She smiled at the man who seemed tranquil at the words she given him.

"May I…see her." His throat was still not fully equipped for words. 

"I suggest you keep it small and let her sleep." She nodded, he sat up with his legs tickling of pins and needles as he put on foot in front of the other and opened the door. There she laid, her short hair, which fell to her ear in small pin curls. She had let her hair grow every fall to her waist, so long and wavy like her mother's but in the springtime she cut it to her ear, giving all of her hair to locks of love. And when it was short it curled, when it was medium length it was straight, and when it was long it was wavy. And every two years this went on, but she never stopped doing it. 

When he saw her in that white sterile room he saw the bandage on her left arm and the translucent tubes right under her nose giving her air that she couldn't breathe. He sat down in the chair by her bed, pulling it closer as her brushed her small locks away from her face. She was asleep, the only way to know was from her chest slowly rising and falling like an angel upon a cloud.

"It was a rainy day, we were afraid the flowers in the back would get over watered that day and die on us. She believed all that hard work in the fall just washed away like our sidewalk was. We knew the flowers were gone, that they died that day, and they haven't even bloomed then. She cried about that, but as soon as I got the fudge brownies out of the oven she quickly smiled and wiped away the tears. But before she could get the first brownie that wasn't going to burn her hands, she went into labor. We were both scared since you weren't due for…what? For another four weeks? Maybe three? Let me see…you were due May 2 so yes that was three weeks." He smiled back up as he counted and summed it up since he rarely thought about the real due date. 

"April 11 was not a nice day to have a baby. Your mother raved that in the car, almost drove me off the road. She told me when she was twelve, a rainy day like that one in April, she was visiting Moscow with her mother when they got stuck in a revolt, and she fell down as the mob went down the street. That day she received two broken ribs, her shoulder dislocated and severe cuts and bruises. She told me that day; she didn't want to have you on the day that scared her most." That was the only day he could remember Laura Bristow not lying that day. 

"So as we got to the hospital they tried to delay her labor as much as possible, but you just wanted to come out. When the doctors asked her to push she refused to; it was five minutes to midnight and your mother bit nail and stone to wait until she knew it wasn't April 11. You should have seen her, crying and yelling since she refused pain relievers, that was your mother, but even as the doctors yelled at her to push, she waited those few minutes until it was April 12 to have you born. And there you were fifteen minutes later, a small crying bundle." He looked down at her with his eyes glazed over with tears.

"You were the first baby I ever held you know that? Your mother said she held babies but nothing so perfect as you. When the nurses told us about how beautiful you were they said they mostly lied to every parent, but you…you were the most beautiful baby there. Small and perfect, you weighed only five pounds even. You were special, you are special. And when we came home it was sunny, and the flowers on everyone's lawn was dead and over watered so we figured our was too. But as your mother held you right in her arms as she walked into the backyard the flowers bloomed and colors were more vibrant that they had been during those three years she planted."

He looked down at his angel, his tears coming down from unwanted blinks. She didn't stir at his memory, she was still in slumber and he wanted that. He didn't want her to question his memory, since it was the only one he had that wasn't a lie. He didn't want to answer her question about her mother and her death. He wondered if Irina had lived would she go own as Laura or leave them as soon as she was called back. It was confusing to figure out the enigma that was Laura Bristow. 

He saw the nurse outside telling him visiting hours was over by tapping on his watch, she kissed the girl deep in slumber and walked outside.

"I like to order her transfer to St. Mercy hospital in Los Angeles, United States." He said to the nurse.

"Don't worry, it was taken care of." She smiled at him

"By who?" Jack questioned.

"We received a phone call two hours ago, it been taken care of." She went back to her folder and smiled as he nodded and walking away, waiting for the helicopter that would bring both Sydney and Jack back to the States.

~~~~~~~~~~

Reviews are kindly thanked. 


	3. The Truth

A/N: It been so long I know, I'm so sorry! Well here it is, alright! Here a new music group I have to introduce…T.A.T.U. It's this Russian pop duo, there really great. Look them up, they are a mix of pop and techno, something to be seen during Syd's crazy dance club missions.

A/N2: To SUSAN! Luv you honey!

Sydney awoke in a hospital room full of sweet smelling mixture of lilacs and roses. She had smelled that aroma before, a perfume that only captivated all her senses in one stir of emotion. She didn't think it thoroughly as she pulled herself to sit up and saw the artificial light from the hallway and the windows open to the California's cool breeze.

As her vision got clearer, she saw the room filled with flowers that her friends must have given her. Lilacs by the window, roses at her side, daisies on her dresser, and other sorts of wild flowers she couldn't name by heart.

__

Ring…Ring…Ring

Sydney saw the little convertible flap phone and flipped it open letting it rest by her ear. 

"Darling, you really should be resting." His thick British accent held sarcasm and concern, which surprised Sydney since only Sark could address her with such a mix of sentiment. 

"Too late." Sydney's voice cracked since she hadn't received her coffee to arouse her senses fully. She began to take her IV out since she thought it held no purpose.

"I wouldn't advise on doing that love." She let her hands rest on her lap as her head tilted to the side. She knew he was around, his voice was too warm to be far away. She smiled as she looked around the room.

"Get in here." Sydney spoke, he was standing with a bouquet of white roses leaning against the frame of the doorway with his own flip cell phone and dressed in the regular Armani suit. He smiled and walked in giving the roses to her and kissing her forehead.

"I was worried about you." He smiled as he sat on the bed, placing a lock of hair behind her ear. She smiled at the affection he showed her and she smelled the roses. 

"You don't have to be." She smiled up at her handler who held her waist, clenching her curve as if it was protecting her. She didn't see it as breakage of protocol since Sark seemed in the run of things, people loved him, feared him, and got what he wanted. He always got what he desired. "They smell nice."

"Well, Sydney that is what I do with my possessions." Sark said saying it as sweet as he could. "You know I care about you." He said moving his hand to rest on her stomach and rubbed his thumb back and forth in a circular motion.

"I do Ethan, I care about you too. Yet your discernment for protocol isn't as impressive as your affection for your asset is." Her tongue lathered in intelligence and sophistication made him laugh. She looked around the room among the flowers and her eyebrow raised. "Who sent all the lilacs?" The lilacs smelled of French perfume that was far too recognizing. She analyzed the scent as she remembered and the emotion she was feeling.

"What is it?" Sydney stood from the blankets and walked to the vases of lilacs and started to go through all the flowers looking for a card. He sat calmly and let her smell the flowers she received.

"I know that perfume…it was discontinued in the late seventies, my mother loved that smell." She investigated the flowers searching for a card; Sark hesitantly stood up and came to her side guiding her back to the bed. "My mother never liked the smell of flowers so she put this very rare and potent perfume in the vase and even after the lilacs died out the scent made the house smell so beautiful." She smelled the flowers letting her eyes close in the memory.

"I…I bought the flowers," he said hesitantly. Sydney turned around and raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you brought those flowers." She looked backed at the white roses on the bed; Sark scratched his head and smiled.

"I didn't know if you like lilacs, and I know every woman loves roses." He explained, covering up for the mess, she wasn't allowed to know, not yet, that wasn't the plan. 

"You did…but what about the perfume? I don't recall telling you." She stared at him waiting for an answer.

"I have no idea? Maybe it just the way lilacs are to you." She shrugged and let him guide her back to the bed. 

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to get the disk to you, the guards caught me by the rose garden almost sprained my ankle on those rocks." her face fell to disappointment to surprise. He shrugged and smiled at the same time.

"We acquired the disk from your father." Her face fell to disappointed to surprise. 

"You knew?" She hissed.

"Apparently the agency did, though I didn't." It was an obvious lie Sydney could have spotted if her emotions weren't caught up with this Mr. Sark.

"Oh," her mouth dropped and as she leaned her head back. "For years I had an impression of a man who took care of business, put my interest first, after I saw him in Berlin I know everything I had designed in my mind was false. He badgered me for the disk to go to damn CIA; he didn't care about what happened to me! He wanted it just for the CIA. And you say the agency knew!" She hissed taking in a pleasure of seeing Sark unpleased.

"I'm so sorry that had to happen like that." He was now totally confused with his employer's plans. 

"Why? Why did he have to do that? This changes everything, I saw a father not a CIA agent. Just a common man trying to get by with a daughter." He placed his palm on top of her head and felt the warm radiating. He leant in to kiss her, their real first kiss. But his cell phone beeped and he knew his time was over, he moved to the side of her cheek and kissed Sydney softly.

"I have to go to Moscow tonight to analyze the disk, I'll see you tomorrow night? I have a nice dinner set up for us?" He figured.

"I would like that." He smiled and walked out of the door. 

As soon as he did, Sydney's father came in, cold and detached. He offered her the flowers of daisies by holding it out in his hand; she smiled warmly and placed them aside of her with the white roses.

"I wanted to say…" He started; she reached her hand and dismissed his words.

"Dad, you have your secrets and I have mine. I want to be loyal to you, and I will but I will never tell anyone." She reassured him, he nodded knowing what she would and wouldn't do. He knew so much of her life was destroyed by her mother's death. She knew that his death would take more of a toll on Sydney than it did as a child. "But I am very displeased with you right now…" She hissed. He swallowed and knew that it wasn't going to be pleasant kisses and hugs. 

"I want you to know Sydney, what ever you do, I love you." He looked to his daughter's eyes and he caught sight of what he did not want to see. "I always believe we have choices, it was always a choice to go into SD-6 or not. But sometimes you can be mislead or tricked, and I'm not blaming you but Arvin Sloane. No matter what Sydney, there is a choice in any decision now I'm giving you a choice of erasing that choice, I'm offering a place in witness protection." He sat inaudibly waiting for an acceptance or a denial.

"I…I can't do that dad." She chokes out, oh how she wanted to escape the spy life. How she wanted to escape her friends, wanted to even escape her love for Ethan, wanted to escape everything because it felt so fake, it felt wrong. But then she would have been killed if she went without word.

Jack nodded and kissed Sydney goodbye on the cheek. She didn't want the discussion to end so soon but there was no way of Jack coming back to her. It was just the way things were.

***

During the following weeks, she was on vacation but she knew it wouldn't last; she was called in the office again. Sark had missed their date due to the fact that the disk had fallen out of their hands, he didn't want to worry her, telling her with a very bad flu had no result. No, she didn't worry but instead wracked her brains out trying to get a hold of Sark for an update more so what the hell was on that disk.

She returned to work with a fabricated smile, nothing more nothing less.

Sydney Bristow walked into Credit Dauphine with her purse in hand. It seemed like the purse went with anything so she carried it around everywhere. A bit dangerous but she loved that bag; she walked in smiling like any other day. She went to her desk and put her coffee on the table.

She walked into the conference room and there was her father, sitting and waiting patiently. She smiled down on him and walked to her seat across from Dixon. Sloane came in with the folders and sat down in his ill-tempered mood.

"We have a situation, when Agent Bristow was in Berlin the disk traveled though FTL communications. They're about to sell it off tonight through many Russian government officials that had KGB connections."

"If they had it so long, why are they now auctioning it off?" She asked him taking the folders that were being handed down the table.

"We didn't know they had it until two nights ago when message came though the one of our SD cells in Sicily." She opened the folder up and saw what to be known as FTL's entire apparent meetings warehouse where the auction will take place. She smiled wryly as she closed the folder on the table and looked up. 

"There more, there is a rumor going around that these FTL agents are reconstructing the KGB council. Sydney, you and Dixon will travel to Moscow tonight have to record the meeting and see where the disk goes, it a threat to national security."

Sydney smiled as she got the kick out of Sloane's insincere and untrue quotes when this information would go to the destruction of not only the United States but also the entire humanity. 

"When do we leave?" Sydney asked.

"Tonight." Her father told her, she nodded as the meeting was dismissed but she never left her seat so did her father. He waited and pulled out his pen and alarmed it, and Sydney questioned his action.

"We have one minute safe." He told her, she smiled in irony and looked down knowing he was going to do the talking. 

"Here," He reached and gave her a small card of white. Her face frowned, as she knew it was a recruiting number, he couldn't take a clue. "When ever you have a problem or a situation, call this number, and we have it fixed. Anything you want." He offered. She denied the offer by sliding it back to Jack on the table.

"I couldn't…I can't accept this." She said if she was referring to a diamond necklace or a large tip.

"Take it, Sloane has many of his agents terminated just by a slip. Call this number whenever you think you're in danger. Please take it…from father to daughter." He passed the card back as the pen beeped with a red light, she sat dumbfounded as he sat up and left. She quickly took the card and placed it in her purse.

***

"A business trip! Sydney you just got out of the hospital!" Francie yelled as Sydney started to pack, but not much since she was staying for only a night to record this apparent auction. She packed only the things she could take along so Francie wouldn't be so suspicious. She nodded at Francie comment as she zipped up her little case after adding her toothbrush and mint flavored paste.

"And tell me again how come when ever you go on a business trip you end up with some kind of sprained ankle or bruise?" Will ask.

"Because I'm a spaz." Sydney figured, Will took that into consideration but Francie didn't buy it. "Come on you know how I always fall down the stairs or forget to tie my shoe laces. It just when ever when I'm on a business trip it happens at the same time. You know how I act when I'm in a new surrounding." She gave out for them to buy it.

"Look all I'm saying is that it doesn't sound like you Sydney, you always the great, smart, unbelievable sweet and innocent girl who comes home like she just competed in the woman's national roller derby. You know? I'm just think this isn't the right job for you. First you're an Insurance Accountant, then you're a International Banker, but you won't quit but yet you still want to be a teacher." Sydney felt a little hurt and turned around to fumble with things that had nothing to do with packing. Francie knew she hit a nerve and Will knew it too.

"Sydney just quit, for us? You can be so much more than a boring banker, you're so smart, you could be so much more to this world." Will pressured her. _If only they knew I really am doing so much for the world, if they only knew._ Sydney ignored the pressure to tell them.

"You don't get it guys, this is what I crave to go to different countries and see new people that I would never meet in America. This is my time…my opportunity to do something so great that it can change the world. We help so many people guys, so many people. Just let me do what I want to do right now because it makes me happy…it makes me happy." 

Though she had just lied to herself, before it was glamour and excitement now it was to the point she was scared to wake up in the morning, scared to go to sleep at night. Scared to breathe or blink for one second because she knew if her cover had been blown she knew that last second could be her last. It was not the fear of the last second; it was the fear of that last second not lasting long enough.

Will and Francie looked at each other ashamed of their behavior, they knew Sydney was shunned by her Father never being ever accepted or loved fully. Now they knew they saw her happy, accepted, and most of all fulfilled. Sydney didn't truly wanted to be an English teacher but just to keep her mother's memory alive, this was the really Sydney, the true Sydney. But how they were misled.

"I have to go guys, I'll see you tomorrow hopefully." She exited out of the house kissing Will and Francie on the cheek without them saying goodbye as she backed out of the driveway.

She kept on trying to call Sark to inform him of her mission and to receive her counter mission. But the phone kept on ringing; now Sydney was fully pissed off.

***

She sat down next to Dixon on the plane to Moscow, calm and relaxed. Ever since that argument of some sorts happened that evening she was battling all the possibilities of Francie and Will knowing of her status. Sark would yell at her to tears for something so irresponsible but what if Sark saw it in her point of view. She just wondered what if?

So she started the conversation on that topic she knew he could relate to.

"Have you ever thought about…you know about telling your family about being CIA?" Sydney spoke he quickly responded by narrowing his eyes and questioning why Sydney would come up with something so negligent.

"Of course not, they think I'm a normal banker and that the way it should stay…for their safety Sydney." He told her. 

"It's hard living a lie, it so hard to tell your best friend that you fell down a flight of stairs for that broken arm that you received fighting off a sniper." 

She spoke about herself in a third person, he nodded understand but not fully indulging in her worries.

"Syd, hey kiddo, think of what your doing for your country. So what if you have to live a secret? Think of what you're doing? Think of all the good, what a little lie going to do?"

She swallowed and wanted to shake him until his head cleared, a life of a lie was unreal. He was working for the enemy and that qualified him to be an enemy. She wanted him to realize that lying your life away wasn't a way to live. She smiled walking into K- Directorate, because she knew they wouldn't lie to her. They all cared about her. 

Her employer cared. Every holiday, every birthday was a present just for her. On her twentieth birthday she received a beautiful ring from the twenties with a garnet stone in sterling silver engraved with an art deco design. Her next birthday was a small vase of dark red roses, which had lasted over an unbelievable three months and had a strong scent of French perfume that sunk in her whole apartment. Her nineteenth Christmas she had a large present shipped from Moscow, which inside had an antique gold box garnished with green jewels which Will swears was real emeralds. She disagreed though; who would send a real gold antique music box with real emeralds? 

They spent an hour trying to find a way to open this mysterious round box. A little button on the back popped open the top and two dancing figures of Nicholas and Alexandra, the last Tsar, came from the bottom of the small box and danced and played a song she subconsciously knew. Will did a little investigating and found it was made during the turn of the century, to celebrate the wedding of the Tsar. Few were made and most of them went to the imperial guests of the wedding, only five were known today including hers. 

She always wondered why she was given these gifts but it was hard to send them back, since the rare things amazed her. She got mostly Russian things though. But no gift could compare to the little porcelain Galena doll in Russian attire that her mother gave her when she was three. She could still remember opening that box at the hospital she when she had pneumonia, her mother stayed everyday grading papers or reading to her.

"Sydney we're here."

Dixon called out from her thoughts and left the airport to the warehouse.

***

Sydney started down by hanging on the fourth floor of this old industrial warehouse where all she could smell were thick pollution by the factories and the heavy sent of cigars. She felt like she was going to get sick from her wire being twisted from her harness and at the same time watching a couple of men auction off a disk that had no value to her personally, but so many people wanted that disk she couldn't help but wonder.

If it weren't for these communist who wanted to resurrect the KGB, she wouldn't be here. She would be home resting like the doctor told her to, not one person that knew of her job told her to rest…except Sark.

That what made Sark different, he was totally infatuated with her and a part of Sydney knew it. She thought it was just as another emotion he added to her double agent status, nothing that was going to end up serious.

She held the camera to the window as steady as she could. But she felt her stomach drop as he made his way beautifully into the room. This mysterious man stood in front of the five men who were interested in this disk.

"Gentlemen have a seat." He offered the chairs behind the old broken wooden table but they refused.

"Get down to business Sark." Sydney swallowed hard as she kept it steady; she didn't know what was going on. Why was Sark here with these men?

"My employer received the disk unsatisfied with the codes, and since you worked with The Man the agency agreed to allow a special bidding." He explained, Sydney kept her eye on Sark not blinking as she waiting for an explanation in his words.

"What does I-" Sark raised his hand and Sydney distinguish a Glock 85 with silencer. Before she could blink in disorientation the man was shot flying backward over the table and on the floor where crimson could be seen, thick and dark. She was set back in awe and felt her harness uncomfortably shifted but she didn't pay attention. Her attention was on the one she fell in love with, her handler, a murderer.

"I was requested that my employer name stay strictly between your own souls, and only be spoken The Man. If you cannot keep it to yourselves my employer would go as far as to ruin your social standing as it is today." He explained. Sydney was taken back again, not the person who lovingly sent her flowers when the holidays arrived. She didn't know what to think anymore. Totally confused she listened closer to the conversation.

"That can be followed Mr. Sark, what is so special about this disk and these codes?" One of them asked calmly.

"These codes go to different men who could be used at your own disposal such as Colonel Winters, Mister Layette, and Senator Peterson." It seemed like the eyebrows came up closer and smiles appeared.

"What would we exchange in this…trade?" 

"Your piece of the Rambaldi's artifact that you acquired during the year." Sark said calmly.

"You crazed." One of the man's thick accent took a hold of his English.

"No, just convinced that you would want these men for your own." 

"And the chance of being caught exchanging with the lead directors of a Communist intelligence agency? You have to get us proof that these codes do belong to those men." He said, soon he fell back with a hit by one of Sark's bullets. Sydney squinted in pain and jerked back and before she knew it she was falling into a glass window in the building next door. Scared and shocked she got up and began running avoiding being seen. 

She began to call Dixon when she learned her earpiece must have fell out. She knew was on her own. She began running still with part of her harness on and the tape in one hand running down the cold alleyways behind factories. She couldn't stop running finding out the truth, she still could have heard them wrong, but she doubted it. She didn't know what to do, she was lonely, and she never felt this lonely before. 

As she was turning on a corner and found her way to a pay phone, she pulled out the card she had in her pocket and dialed the numbers that her father gave her earlier that day. Before she knew it she was being picked up in two minutes and soon she was back home being held in her Father's arms tightly.


	4. Caught

***

Sydney was crying in his arms, he couldn't figure why she was sobbing on his jacket. Jack couldn't do anything but to hold her tightly. When he was notified that K-Directorate agents caught her recording, he almost cursed him to death. The was only so many people she could get caught by, all making Jack sick to his stomach but none of them turned his stomach like K- Directorate agents.

"Sydney, tell me what wrong. Please!" Jack begged her. Sydney couldn't tell him, she couldn't bring herself out to words of what she saw in Moscow.

"I was just scared, that's all." She sobbed herself in the crook of his shoulder and Jack sat her down on the coat in the CIA headquarters. He knew Sydney didn't want to be there, but there was no place for Sydney to go. He sat down next to her holding her so tightly yet so gentle she wondered if this could happen again.

"I know you were but, this is different, you're reacting different."

"You'll hate me if I told you; I could be killed if I told you." By those words, Jack pressed his chin on top her head and squeezed her harder. He wanted her to be released of her fears and sadness just for her to smile up and say 'thank you daddy'. But she was too old, too wonderfully independent to say anything emotional. Sydney reminded him of himself when he was young, too scared and too concluded to see the images already painted for him.

"I promise, I promise I won't, just tell me." She looks up into his eyes, glazed over and disgusted with herself.

"I've been living a lie…I've been living to most terrible lie anyone could live." She told him; suddenly Jack wished he hadn't asked her that question. "Six years ago, after graduation I was recruited to an intelligence agency devoted to ending all illegal affairs of countries selling weapons, narcotics, and Intel. During that time, I was recruited by SD-6 and the forced me to go under as a double agent, tonight I found out that I wasn't recruited by an equal world agency but a resurrection of the old disbanded KGB." She told him. Jack tensed up, not his daughter, not his sweet innocent daughter. He swore to himself Sydney was not Laura, of all the times she acted or pretended to be her she was not. But this was an uncanny and surreal moment in Jack Bristow's life.

"They tricked me Daddy, the person I trusted the most…my handler…Mr. Sark…betrayed me." Her hands met her face crying in disbelief that this was her life in a nutshell. "They told me I would be helping not one country but the whole world, when they are the fucking KGB…I've been working for the Russians." She cried on his chest not fully accepting her role in society.

Jack sat in bewilderment, not his daughter, no, this was not happening. He swore to himself he was going to find the person who recruited her and would kill him. He would destroy whoever had decided that his daughter would make a great pawn. Whoever said like mother like daughter, it wasn't true. It would never be true under the Bristow name. Never.

"Daddy, I…I…I would have never joined if I had known. Please Daddy, don't…don't abandon me." She spoke into his chest. He immediately wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

"Never…Never." He whispered.

***

Vaughn stood with his coffee watching the video of the Bristows' in one of the cots they had set up for the Agents who were stuck on long hours to sleep instead of driving home dangerously. But it wasn't a time to think about that; they had a situation that the CIA wouldn't take lightly. A fully active K-Directorate in their hands, he saw the way her father was looking as the officers came in and broke them up and handcuffed her back and dragged her away. She didn't look surprised as much as Jack did, if she knew that would happen. That was one, two she told in a fully wired all around office and she probably knew that.

"Think its setup?" Eric asked.

"Probably, she knew of the cameras." Vaughn figured. But there was something about Agent Bristow's daughter that was unsettling in his stomach.

Jack ran out of the room and went to Devlin but instead he found Haladki; you knew he was not enjoying this.

"Why the hell did you arrest my daughter, she has do nothing wrong."

"We have to make sure that she had told the truth, she could be here for the same purpose of gathering information." Haladki said.

"Information of what? My daughter has been tricked the same way…what I meant is that if her loyalties lie with me, she isn't a threat." Jack concluded.

"Did you tell her of your double agent status?" Haladki asked, Jack stared sternly at Haladki question.

"You are entering on dangerous territory." Jack warned.

"What? The house of lies? What do they say Jack in this situation…I remember, like mother like daughter." He smirked and before he knew it, Haladki was on floor with a tooth knocked out. Vaughn and Weiss started to run over to hold Jack back; they both knew he struck a nerve. But Jack was calm again after the sudden act of aggression he stood composed over Haladki's cursing body.

"Are you fucking mad?" Haladki spat out touching his jaw, some people helped him up. "I'm going to have to report this, Bristow." He yelled at him.

"Go ahead, but if you **ever **compare my daughter to that---woman I will personally come and rip out your tongue." Jack pulled at the bottom of his suit and walked away. 

Vaughn stared at Haladki, from that minute he knew something was wrong. 

***

Vaughn followed the guards to where Sydney was being held and looked in the room next door where he saw her from the one way window. Her hair was short but wavy like she was picked out of the old jazz pictures of the twenties, but the messy figure waves were left in distress of her weeping. She was in a pair of faded green pants and a lose button up shirt. Her face was pale white, scared for her life. He truly did believe that she was afraid of dying in the hands of the three agencies she was riving with. But that didn't let him fall, it still could be a set up.

Sydney was handcuffed to the chair violently fighting the marshals that were holding her down.

"Miss Bristow please, we're not going to hurt you." Haladki calmly said, walking to the table. She quickly tensed up and calmly placed her foot that had been up in the air to kick the one of the US marshal down to the ground. "Good, let's get started." They quickly wired her up to the machine she was too familiar with. 

"I wouldn't advise using that polygraph." She advised him. He asked her why not and she replied, "I was taught by K-Directorate how to advise by blood flow avoid being found out by that machine." He quickly called the men off of sticking sensors on her forehead. She smiled and crossed her legs. Haladki sensed something was different about her.

"Alright, when you were recruited to K-Directorate?" He asked.

"The day of my high school graduation." Sydney stated.

"Please describe your…years at K- Directorate." 

"I was given full training by expert martial artists and soldiers for eight months, I advanced in a incredible rate. They told me I was a natural born spy, and that I had been one of their best students. I moved up quickly as I worked in the office, people stared at me, told me how I was valuable asset to them. No one was as nice to me as my employer." She said.

"Your employer?" He asked.

"Yes, The Man. I was given birthday and holiday presents ranging to flowers to jewelry. They told me I was his favorite, that he paid special attention to me and only **me**. They said if I worked hard enough I had what it took to become one of K-Directorate's most greatest agents, I have to admit that all I wanted."

"Did you ever meet him?" Haladki said making his way back to the subject of her employer.

"No, I did not."

"What kinds of missions were you placed on?" Haladki asked.

"I was placed on simple recon missions, nothing too dangerous. They said it would be my time to shine soon, and by the time I had requested to be pulled up in rank I was given a card to recruited SD-6." She paused setting her head back in aggression. "I was given permission to go under as a double agent, I went under another six months of training and another eight months of office work. By the time I was on my junior year I was a fully active agent for SD-6." She told him.

"And who is your handler?" 

"Mr. Sark." She said; he looked up from his folders.

"I want to know after all the time you worked at SD-6 you didn't know that K-Directorate was a Russian intelligence?" He said.

"There was a rumor of the council being resurrected, but I never learned that K-Directorate was a part of the Soviet Union." She hissed. "From what I learned at SD-6 was that K-Directorate was a rebel underground agency stealing useful information that could be used in dangerous measures against the 'CIA'." Sydney said.

"You knew of SD-6's falsehood of being CIA."

"Yes."

"And did you ever think about going to the CIA?"

"I was told by Sark that the CIA had it own corrupt values." Her eyebrows raised, he smiled and sat back in his chair.

"What is your agenda, Miss Bristow? You knew the room was wired. You also knew if your cover were blown this would happen. The Russians have a history of betrayal." He said. Her eyebrows narrowed and she glared coldly at him.

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" She snapped.

"Your Mother was Russian."

"Her grandmother was from Russia, yes she was one-third Russian. I don't see how that has to do with anything." She coldly said.

"Maybe your mother had KGB connections."

"Who the hell are you to come in here and suspect my deceased mother of being KGB! How dare you!" She yelled at the foolish and rash weasel.

"Let me ask you one thing, your mother knew about you father being CIA?" He asked her.

"Yes, so…are you freaking nuts. How dare you say that, how dare you!" She began to struggle with the handcuffs, as she wanted to rip out his throat. No, she had to remain calm so she settled back in her chair and sighed. "If you say one more thing about my mother I will kill you."

"I wouldn't advise saying anything of the sort." He told her.

"What do you plan to do with me?" She asked.

"We going to hold you in custody until we find where you loyalties lay, you hold a threat."

Vaughn walked into the hallway waiting for Haladki to exit. He held his arm before passing. "Was that really called for?" Haladki grunted.

"If you only knew the Bristow family." Vaughn looked baffled.

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" Vaughn asked.

"The Bristows are a very unique family, the more you figure it out the more dangerous the Bristows are." And he left him going down the dark hallways.

Vaughn walked into the room when she was being pulled from the chair and they began to chain her legs since she was too dangerous to the Marshals during the 'interview'. Vaughn eyebrows narrowed as Sydney didn't go against it, and let the men slide their hands in between her thighs.

"Hey is there a need for that?" Vaughn asked rudely, he just ignored him by making a grunt and made his was back to her arm. But they didn't move, her eyebrow raised and she sniffled from her tears. 

"I'm Agent Vaughn, I've been assigned to your case."

"You're here to help me or condemn my fate?" Sydney asked.

"I'm here to help you Sydney, even though I feel you do have your own agenda here, you knew about the CIA being wired, and you knew if you told you father it would be betraying everything you know you would be in danger." Sydney started to become frightened; everyone was the enemy here. "But my thoughts don't matter, what matters is that I'm on your side."

"What do you want to know."

"Everything."

"Everything is a lot Mr. Vaughn." Sydney said

"Please—just Vaughn."

"Well Vaughn are you sure what your asking for? Everything, everything is a dangerous request." She asked him.

"Sydney I need to know everything to back you up."

"What about SD-6 and K- Directorate?" She asked worried.

"It being taken care of, Sydney, nothing is going to happen to you. You're safe." And by that, Sydney seemed relieved.

Sydney was lead in a small cell, enough space for a couch and a love seat but she wasn't given that. She was given a nice cot and a pair of clothing sitting on her bed. She had been striped, searched, interrogated, and brought down to a little standing. A traitor, yes, but guilty, no.

She stood behind the glass watching the man who had most jade eyes almost real to touch and bleed.

"How long am I going to be here?" Sydney asked. But she knew he didn't know that answer. "I guess I deserve this." Sydney sniffled. Vaughn looked up into her eyes, she was heartbreaking.

"You were too young to know what you were getting into." Vaughn said.

"I need some time alone." Sydney said.

"Are you sure? I know if I was arrested, interrogated, and thrown in a cell in the past hour I would need a friend." Vaughn said, she questioned him though his eyes. He felt suddenly embarrassed, _the girl wanted to be alone but you just have to pry. _"But of course you probably don't care what I think." He began his way down the hall with the cranking of the bars but her voice broke though the clanging.

"I do," Her voice came though. "Tell me, I care what you think since you're the only agent who believes that I'm not here as a spy." She said. He turned around and sat down in the chair she sat on the cot.

"What your full name?" She asked. By that, he got uncomfortable and shifted in his chair. "Tell me, if I must trust you with my…life I have to know who you are." She pleaded.

"Michael Cordell Vaughn." He said,

"Strong French name," Sydney observed.

"My mother was French." He said; she looked at her characteristics, beautiful arched eyebrows, a narrow chin, high cheekbones, and soft wavy hazelnut hair. "You're Russian."

"I'm more Irish I suppose since my grandmother was from Ireland and she had the most fiery red hair…But we're not talking about that…um…it wasn't so strong in my mother's side. But somehow, even though my mother was American she took her heritage seriously. She taught me not to be ashamed of it, to be proud that I come from a line of strong women when the country was dying though communism. She made me proud," She bit her lip as she thought about what Haladki was talking about. "I'll die if I ever find out that my Mother had KGB connections." But the more she thought about it the more it seems possible why the K-Directorate recruited her.

"He was being rude, I apologize for that." He said.

"She died when I was six, I never felt the same without her."

"My father died too, though when I was eight. He died for his country." She knew by that statement that he was CIA, she nodded and let her head lean against the brick. "There this crazy rumor that your family is beyond crazed." He mentioned.

"Maybe I believe that now." She smiled.

"What is it with your family that makes these rumors?" Vaughn asked.

"I guess my family holds…power. People fear people with power." Sydney figured letting her fingers need though her blanket. She rethought what she said it didn't make sense. "Well my Father very stern, with that he holds power. I guess that how it is." Sydney said. Sydney saw the way Vaughn starred at her, differently than Sark. He sat with his hands folded respectfully smiling. "Why do you care so much?"

Vaughn sat clueless and opened his mouth to talk but nothing formed from his lips. "Um…I find you interesting."

"Interesting? How?" Sydney asked.

"You lived a lie, but yet you became such a…powerful and respectable woman who can hold herself, independent. You cry but your strong, you smile and laugh but your serious, that interests me."

"No I'm not. I'm cold and heartless and I've killed. This is what they made me. I wasn't always like this, you have to understand. Now all I care about is the objective at hand and now that I have none…I feel so empty inside." She sighed. Tears struck down her face and she wiped them off, embarrassed to show them. "I've been trained and brought to become this, and now I realized I was never happy, I thought I was doing something good. I'm so ashamed." It brought her to tears.

She wanted to cry more, to break out of her shell that she constructed to protect herself from what she was dreading. This was the inevitable; she sat down on the coat and pulled her legs up to her chin. She knew she was going to be here for awhile.

"Sydney, look at me." And she did almost crumbling. "I believe you, and I'm going to help them see that you have been tricked. You understand me?"

"Yes."

When Vaughn left, two things had settled in his mind. That Sydney Bristow was fully innocent, and was deceived into joining K- Directorate. And secondly that he was attracted to the woman. Just thirty minutes and he was falling and how was he falling hard. She was strong, beautiful, and elegant. And if he noticed it one more time he be pulled up into her game, if that she did have an plan.

***

Please Review! For me! I want and need more reviews! I'm greedy!


	5. Trapped in Corsica

A/N: Thanks a lot for Susan's help, hope your paper goes well. Well I just got back from NYC for the protest, it was amazing, people down there just have so much energy against the war, it was very moving. Thanks to my FREE TIBET CLUB members, even though I'm new and you don't know me you help for the city was amazing. I know it been so long and it is my fault but lets get on with the chapter.

***

Sydney stared out into space; she has been in here for two weeks and not yet visited by Haladki, saying she was innocent. First of all, she had done nothing wrong, nothing of the sort. She had been tricked and betrayed by the person she most trusted and cared for.

"Sydney," Her father voice came through the glass pane; she had lost herself to hear the bars clanging to rise. She slowly looked at him and stood up, walking to where he stood.

"Do I really need all this…security? I mean…I'm not a murderer." She told him.

"They want you as secluded as they can get you," His eyes blinked and he looked softly and tenderly at his child. "I brought you some reading material; I didn't know what you liked so I picked up as many books around your room as I could find." He slides the books though the box behind the grating and she smiled as she went through the books of her teenage years. Anne Frank, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill A Mockingbird, Short stories by Mark Twain, Anna Karinina, and then something too old to remember, James and the Giant Peach?

"What this? I don't remember this." She held up the ragged broken book, whose pages had been yellowed with age and had been ripped and torn.

"You don't remember that?" He asked shocked, he smiled softly as her eyebrows narrowed. "I read it to you every night when you were four, you loved that book.  After that, you had a fascination with peaches, you ate them constantly." Her face was still baffled. "I really can't believe you don't remember."

"I remember eating a lot of peaches, but not the book." She turned the pages slowly taking in the scent of her father's after-shave. She saw the unusual scribbles of pictures every chapter and then in the back saw her Father's handwriting. To Sydney's Peach Fascination – Daddy, 1980. "I have no idea."

"I knew it was something below your level of comprehension, you mother clarified that a millions of times." He coughed, paused slightly and went on. "I knew it wasn't Tolstoy or Fitzgerald, but you needed imaginary characters full of adventures and…color. I felt you learned too much of the world by your Mother's…teachings, you needed to be a child." He explained. The memories started to come back as Jack came home, picking her up from carpet as she watched television. He had carried her to the chair, sat her on the lap, and began to read the book as her mother clean up a peach and handed it to Sydney. She would fall asleep on her father's lap, every night he came home. Sometimes they would go though a page, sometimes two chapters. What ever it was Sydney felt peaceful in her father's arms.

All Sydney wanted to do was to feel his arms around her, protectively, paternally.

Then Vaughn entered the though the bars, standing next to Jack behind the same glass pane.

"Well, what has happened lately?" Sydney asked, prying for some type of news. Vaughn thought for a moment, "Nothing much from yesterday…but we need your help. Sark has one of the Rambaldi's pieces that we gained in Vienna," Before she could finish Sydney answered his question.

"Sark has a house in Corsica, France. That's his hideaway when things get hectic, it under the deed of Francis Rathford. He adores the blue ocean of the Mediterranean; he spent a great deal of his teenage years away from Ireland and in France." She explained he sensed there had been something between them, and now she had confirmed it how she spoke so fondly but blindly. "But it greatly monitored, you have to careful. It's a death trap, only I know how to get in."

"How do you know this?" Jack asked.

"During spring break, I told you I would be spending the week with Francie and Will when I was really in Corsica." She said. They both looked at each other. "Any protocol states you cannot be seen with your handler, isn't that true?"

"Sark…he beyond protocol, I thought it was strange, too, why he easily broke protocol and still remained my handler though the agency." Sydney smiled with a sigh out of irony. "But we know why he could, and did. He was working along side 'the man', he had the standing above handler." Sydney said.

"We need the codes." Vaughn said.

"No codes." Sydney said.

"Voice activation?" Jack asked.

"Thumb prints." Sydney said.

"We need your finger prints." Sydney nodded.

"You not telling us something." Jack concluded and Sydney nodded again.

"It's not his home." Sydney said. Jack eyebrows narrowed as he questioned who house was it.

"It's our employer's."

"The Man's?" 

"Yes, Sark told me it wasn't his home but the private house of our employer. He suggested we both stay there since we did a good job that year." Sydney explained. 

"Have you ever…seen him?" Vaughn asked.

"No, no I haven't." Sydney said. Then she looked up to her father with doe eyes like begging for candy. "Let me come along." She pleaded.

Vaughn was baffled; he didn't know what to say or what Jack was going to say. They stood there waiting for an answer to form from their mouths. They didn't want to say no but they couldn't just say yes. Sydney stood there and saw their expressions, clueless.

"I mean, I have the access, I know when the guards change shift. I know the easiest way in and out, and I want…I need to see the sun again." She looked at them about to cry, but she held the tears in afraid to blink. "Please, this will prove my loyalty. Let me do that."

"I'll try." Jack said.

"Thank you." Sydney said, to both Vaughn and her Father.

As they exited Sydney sat back on her bed with the books, and began to read. Not the classics she conquered at an early age but the torn, yellowed, children's book that had been at the bottom of the pile.

***

Haladki walked in from office when he saw the request two minutes later and stormed into where Sydney was reading, she looked up and smiled at the weasel, sat up from the cot, the book still propped in her hands. Sydney began to reach the glass to come face and face with him.

"It called 'The Inferno' by Dante, have you ever read it? It takes a journey though hell, though points of sin though recreation or politics. It's a masterpiece really, an epic poem though hell's set of torture for an adulator or even a corrupt politician. You must have read it, Haladki." She smiled as she closed the book and his eyes twitched bizarrely.  She nodded, as she knew he knew.

"You are going to get me out of this cell before I report you to security." She spoke to him again.

"You have no power over me, Miss. Bristow." But he was unknown to Sydney Bristow's power over others. She was taught well by many instructors how to crush little roaches like Haladki even if they were on the identical side. She thought inadequately of Haladki currently as she tilted her head to the side, evaluating on how extensive it would endure for him to comprehend her command. Since working for the enemy, being taught by the enemy, she acted like the enemy.

"Don't be so sure of about that Haladki, I remember you at the Institute in Moscow. I was there for a five-week training period so my standing wouldn't be compromised. But I remember you, and that was a K- Directorate building. You work for them." He searched in her eyes and gave out a stubble laugh.

"You don't understand Bristow, I have you. You can do nothing, you have no power over me." He turned to leave and said one finally time, "You will not have permission to leave this cell, not over my dead body."

"That can be arranged." Sydney snapped back, Haladki smirked.

"Your father is already airborne, there nothing you could do now." He walked out of the cell. She swore to herself as she sat back on the cot and took out another book. She knew she was compromised, she was worried about that but that wasn't as worrying as her father going alone to Corsica. She knew that there were going to be complications in the mission, she had the information, everything about the house she knew.

But they were ignoring her, and she didn't appreciate being ignored when supplying generous information for no reword.

She began to read softly, letting the words flow of her lips as her eyes dotted across the lines. Hours went by as she found it harder to read a child's book and her thoughts traveled to her Father. She knew something he needed to know.

The house was a death trap, when armed.

She placed her book down and stood up walking to the mirror. She knew something was wrong as the footsteps moved closer and the stress on his forehead was seen.

"Your Father hasn't responded for about an hour. Were sending a team down there, you're coming with us."

"Armed?" Sydney asked.

"Yes."

"Good." Sydney nodded as she was being let out of her cage.

***

April 22, 1999

Sydney took the bag from the seat, and as the car door opened, she saw a hand appear. She placed her hand in his and exited the car as the sunlight hit her face from the tinted windows of the car. As she stood, she saw him smiling. She looked around and saw the huge chateau that took her breath away.

"We're staying here." He nodded. 

"This is unbelievable." 

"I do enjoy spoiling you." He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her though the doors and up the stairs telling her about the guard switch and the information she needed to know. Dinner at six, breakfast in bed, lunch on the patio, and this weekend was the Richmond gala in which her employer had sent a dress to her for the special occasion. Black and green silk dress that was backless, she thought the selection was in good taste but sensitive in the area that it was chosen by a stranger. 

She had spent the week around in the large library or at the pool. She had seen Sark in the office working not spending as much time away as Sydney thought he would. But at the gala, he was mingling and sharing political thought with other gentlemen of his standing, when Sydney talked to the women who weren't gaining any interest of her standing. 

They had shared a waltz in which his hand never left her uncovered back; soon they found themselves in her room undoing their clothing, kissing, and then falling on the bed. It wasn't exactly love but it wasn't work either, it was hard to describe it. It just seemed that what they wanted at the time and they were both there. They didn't talk about it afterwards; it felt too awkward for her and it wasn't partial to their relationship. He had hoped for another chance together to tell her how he truly felt but she felt unattached when he had tried to talk. 

It seemed their relationship would always be awkward for him and her.

***

"Hello?"

"Agent Sydney Bristow is AWOL."

"My girl never disappoints me. Tell me how?"

"Michael Vaughn had appointed Sydney in charge of the mission to excursion of her Father in Corsica."

"Serves them right, The CIA should have listened to her."

"Agent Bristow knows about the mole, she is lead to believe that the agency knows about her being held captive."

"Make sure that thinks that we don't."

"Anything else madam?"

"Keep a close eye on my daughter."

***

Sydney entered the basement with Vaughn, keeping their guns aimed and armed for any type of intruder. As soon as Sydney saw the guard she fired, he was down. They moved on and Vaughn began to open the door, she held him away from it. She took off her glove and placed her hand on the dark screen next to it, it scanned her prints and they moved on through the door. 

Memories seeped through Sydney's brain of Sark profile, how he showed her the teenage side of him. He enjoyed music from all sorts of countries, Celtic and French, even Russian. She believed that was only true self of Sark.

"Sydney, which room's the safe?" Vaughn voice came out from her thoughts. _Be on task, Sydney, don't wonder_.

"Third one on the left." Sydney replied.

Sydney put her hand on the door, waiting a second as she raised her gun through the door and shot. Vaughn was surprised as the careless waste of a bullet, but as they opened the door she saw the guard down on the floor. As they opened the door they saw her father in the chair, tied to the arms and legs, his eyes opened widely as they entered the room. Sydney took off her mask and went to untie her Father as Vaughn looked around the empty room. There was no safe; he had been lied to. 

But something wasn't right, for Sydney either. Not at all.

"Dear Sydney."

Sark was here.

A/N: Reviews would make me write faster, please press that button down their, the purple one. Go on, you can do it, come on, give you a cookie, there we go. Thank you.


	6. Tough Way Out

****

A/N: I think I'm falling in love with you Susan. She is such a great Beta reader, and not to mention writer. Sorry, though, because I changed it around a bit than the one you read.

A/N2: Sorry, about the wait! I am truly! School sucks and my term paper was due, and so was my World History Credits, plus my Pre-Calculus Master Exams. So writing this became something of a chore, and writing shouldn't be. So sorry! But here is the thing, I got 10 chapters done so that is…4….6…16 chapters? I do not know.

***

Chapter 6

Sydney turned to the figure in the shadows, before her hands met the rope. Her face was emotionless which turned Sark on even more. Her face was emotionless, like a powerful ruthless Grand Duchess that she was. Sark came from behind, brushing against Sydney with passion. Vaughn was displeased with the man, disgusted was more like it. He couldn't stand him standing against Sydney with such a dominant side. Their faces pinned a fraud and a conspiracy, something they both seemed to be in on.

Soon guards came in and made Vaughn sit in the iron chair next to Jack. Sydney looked back and saw him being restrained; Sydney looked over to Sark, who had stepped closer.

"Would you care to explain why you were working with CIA agents?" Sark's voice was hard and bitter, but started soft to her letting her know he was concern.

"When I saw my father he knew why I didn't give him the disk. He took me under arrest by the CIA. I was able to trick them, with Haladki's help, in coming to Corsica. I knew you would be here and the artifact would be already being transferred to another location than here. I was going on intuition, and it worked. You know I would never betray you." Her voice was hoarse and soft as it was to Vaughn and Jack surprise that she tricked them. 

"Yes, I know my darling. What do you plan on doing with them?" He shifted his power to her. She took the rare chance of using Sark's power for her own benefit.

"I don't know. He is my father, Sark." She attacked him. He took the hint and moved close to Jack.

"I had a nice talk with him, though didn't answer much. Keeps his poker face on, very clever though." He turn around his chair like eying his prey. This was a game to Sark, it always was. This time Sydney knew his game and one false move on his half could loose all trust with the girl. The poor thing, Sark thought, choosing between her Father and glory. She will make the right choice, in time she will see her destiny. "It weird how you two do not seem alike at all."

Sydney smiled at Sark with such affection that it was undeniable they were emotionally attached. "My Father has a weakness for water, drown him and he will speak." Sydney come close to him, straddled her hands on the chair and met with his eyes. And for a second could see sorrow and pity, but it changed with the movements that she forced.

"Drowning? It always has been my weakness and there is no doubt it is the same with you Daddy." She hasn't called him that in years. Moments back when she was leaving for camp, begging to stay with her nanny. She would do anything to stay home, with her mice that she kept in a cage in the den. Those mice were the weirdest thing a child, let alone a little girl desired. He should have known then when she took the two mice from the cage, Julia and Kitty, and set them out in the house and watched how the cat ran after the mice. He heard the squeaking of the mice from upstairs. He was terrified as he walked into the living room and saw Sydney watching Boris, their orange cat, eating the mice. The nanny had been screaming that she was the devil's child and moved out of the house the following day. When Jack shook her shoulders shocking her out of her trance, he asked her why she let Boris eat Julia and Kitty. She replied, I was bored. He hasn't been so terrified for her well being in his life. That is when he sent her to therapy until she was sixteen.

"Death by water, the same way mommy died. It was your fault that she died, you know. I've always blamed you for taking away my mother." She told him sadly.

"I know you blame me." He replies. Sark is surprised by his voice, hours of interrogation and not a vowel now he was speaking clearly and crisply. But Jack was aware of his presence at the time, it was just him and Sydney.

"Did you ever think that maybe I needed you when she died? That I needed a family."

"The CIA…"

"Exactly. It was never just the Bristows. It was Jack, Laura, Sydney, and the CIA. It was never the three, it was always the four." Sydney spat.

"I can't control it Sydney." 

"You could have tried! You made no effort. I cried my eyes out waiting for you to return from your business trips when I tried my best to win your love. You never even appreciated me!"

"Darling, I think that time is running away with you. We a have a plane to catch in twenty minutes." Sark interrupted. Sydney looked up and nodded.

Sark escorted her out with his hand on the small of her back.

The guards stood on guard as Sydney and Sark walked out of the room and entered the office where she strolled around. Different from before, seemed like it suited Sark more than the musty upper-class office which he once had. But after all this wasn't his house. She blatantly stared into the Van Gogh copy on his office wall. Beautiful, placed piece by piece from the brush strokes made you feel misplaced and content at the same time. Sydney mused all the feelings that associated with the picture until he spoke from the silence. 

"You're unhappy. Your Father probably." He muses. She turned around from the picture and he placed his hands on her hips.

"Not exactly, I'm worried about that Agent Vaughn. He trusted me and yet I betrayed him." Sydney looked down at her hands, shaking and numb. He took raised up her face with his palm, and brushed the loose strands of her short hair behind her ear. He missed her long beautiful locks, instead her chestnut hair was chopped at her ear and didn't resemble her style. It was accepting about it though, it just seemed like she was falling apart.

"Look at me." Her brown eyes once rested on the floor now looked up at his gray eyes. She could just felt her soul melting with every breath he took. "You look down to no one, not even me. You rule with power, make them fear you, and they will respect you. Though who could not, you are such a beautiful woman." He thought to himself, one of his many personalities. "Don't worry about small agents below you, that is why you have me. Your challenge is above you, such as Sloane. Your bring down Sloane and you will have the power." 

"It scares me." She admited.

"This life does, but believe me Sydney, you have potential and that potential will not be waste."

"You say that every time I get discouraged, when is it going to happen?" She looks at him wanting and lost.

"Soon Sydney, very soon." 

Finally he gave in to her deception and kissed her, touched her lips with raw emotion. Quickly he took his hands and pressing them on her cheeks, giving into her fully. She moved more closer to him for her body to be pressed on his at the same time. His thirst drives him to take his hand from her cheeks and down her back to her backside and pulling her up wrapping her legs around his body and pulling her closer to savor her. His kisses become rougher and intense as the chemical flow to his head and then he realizes why she was so exotic and tempestuous.

She gave into him since she could not resist. She never could. 

He placed her on the couch as he came down on her, taking in her beauty. He started to take off her black sweater and taking in the sight of her upper torso. The lacy black bra and her milky pale skin, he stares and savors the memory. She questioned him by cocking her head to the side, smiling.

"I don't know how I resisted you for all those years."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and began kissing him softly, devouring him. He never saw this side of Sydney in the bedroom, it has always been about racing, bring the beginning to the end successfully and do it again---eight times, last time he remembered of being with her.

"I want to go slow, I want it my way." She whispered in his ear.

His hands suddenly drop from her shoulders and she hears a large thump on the hard wood floors. Before she could turn around she hears the gun cock and then blackness incursion with her vision; she doesn't want to open her eyes. But her eyes were open. 

__

Red.

Blood.

Where's the blood? Where's the light?

I can't move. Someone help me. 

Sark, he had to do this. 

Why? 

He loved me! 

Didn't he? He was my handler. 

Wait. 

Does he know? 

Where the damn blood? 

I need my cell, have to help Daddy. 

Is he alive? 

Mommy, where's Mommy? 

Sydney's mind flashes, she saw bright lights, and then the beautiful mobile music from her crib was heard.

Her mind flashed to the graceful figure as the figure picked up the small baby from the crib and smiled as she held her baby above her head and then settled the baby in her arms

"Zaravet ubezhat, Ili dver na zamok, I molchat I lezhat, Izuchat potolok, I mechtat ne kad vse, Tselovat nebesa, Potolok karusel."

The mother sung to the child caring in her arms, singing in her native tongue. She smiled as the darling baby cooed and smiled brightly at her mother's beautiful voice. The sun came in and she looked up and back down as they knew it was morning.

"Cry and run away, or lock the door, keep the silence and lie, studying the ceiling, dream not like everybody, kiss the heaven, ceiling is a carousel." She repeated in English for the baby's understanding. "Happy Birthday, Sydney, One year old!"

Softly, the baby giggled as the mother rocked her back and forth, settling on tickling the baby's stomach as she continued to sing the song along with the mobile tune.

***

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A/N3: More reviews the faster I'll put up the other chapters.


	7. Negitive Possibility

**A/N: Sorry it was so long, I told you that I finished some chapters but yet again I did not have this on my computer. Sorry. Please forgive me?**

**Chapter 7 **

When Sydney awakes she not anywhere where she knew, the sunrise is different, the sheets of her bed, the music being played. Everything is unsettling to her stomach when she believed that at any second she could be dead. Everything is just a haze, she was not aware as she wanted to believe.

"Go to sleep," a voice whispers. A soft warm hand reached out and gently touches her face bringing a comforting feeling to her eyes.

"Who killed me?" Sydney inquires.

"No one." The hand is so soft; she moved her body towards the figure. Her head on the stranger's lap and resting comfortingly as the numbness fades in. Fingers went through her hair as she silently mummers pains from her body.

"Why are you protecting me?"

"I love you."

"Then don't let them hurt me…they will find out…I thought I was doing good…I…I don't want to die." She cried out, whispers and the warm protectiveness that she was given by this stranger soothed her.

"I promise, darling, no one will hurt you." Soon Sydney fell back into a deep peaceful slumber and thought the she would never fully return to it. 

***

But yet again in a day's time she woke in a hospital, this would be her fifth long-term visit in which it would be a CIA hospital. Her father was there when she woke up; he too had been though medical evaluation and had only a few scrapes and bruises. But his daughter, she had been drugged and kidnapped and needed and wanted to know of her assurance that she was well.

He had been a child once in this game, he learned quickly though. But he didn't not believe anyone could be an expert in the CIA, only a level of appreciation. But seeing his daughter in the game and play as well as she had in the past couple of weeks. Well, not much to say but he was proud and deep down in his heart he would always be proud of her.

He had lied about the debrief, that his daughter did no such thing as double cross him, but the implied night with Sark had left questions to his mind.

"What happened?" Her voice called from his thoughts; groggily she sat up and opened her eyes.

"Sydney…Right after you left the room with Sark, CIA came and saved us. When we looked for you were missing and Sark ran with Rambaldi's piece. When we returned we were notified that you were sent to Angel of Mercy, you're safe the CIA won't put you back into custody. I have to chaperone you during the time though,"

He didn't have to explain. She could lie and he knew she could lie, it just killed him that she knew the skill so well to heart. He couldn't hide it, but she could. She was the greatest mistress of them all and he knew Sydney was taught by the same enigmas that taught his wife.

"I was almost made by Sark, and right before he realized what was going on he was shot. When I turned around I was shot also. I wake up here, you think someone knows?" She interrupts him.

"How would that be possible though?" He thinks about Berlin, and how she was sent to a hospital without his signature. And now, he had to figure everything out before something extreme happened.

"Everything possible, especially in this game." Sydney told him.

"I already explain to you want Sloane believes, and your injuries will prove the lie." He went off the topic. "They CIA can't put you back in custody as much as they want to, that would arise suspicion. They assigned you a handler."

"Who?" She asked quizzically.

"Agent Vaughn." Her eyes lit up and smiled. Someone she could trust and count on, and now she was her handler. That was only if she…no she couldn't think that, she still had tasks. 

"What about Sark?"

"The CIA is on the hunt, if you see him it's important you contact us as soon as possible. Stay as low key as possible."

The unnoticed pen beeped and he returns it to his pocket and sat up straight. 

"After you were kidnapped by K- Directorate we told Will and Francie that you're a group of rebels kidnapped you for the codes to the United Nations Federal Bank. They visited a few times, I'll go out to get them." He played along, he turns to leave but before Sydney called him again.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you, I know it's been so hard for you lately, and I want to thank you for **_trying_** to save me in Berlin." She says. He nodded as he exits the room and Will and Francie came in barring pillows and blankets, flowers and candy. Francie was crying as much as she could without messing up her make-up and Will his smiling wildly at the truth that she was okay.

"Oh God Sydney, you looking better after being kidnapped. The bank is doing as much as they can to give the information to the police, and oh it's so good to have you home again Sydney!" Will hugged her friend.

"You scared us to death." Francie stated.

"I'm so glad to be back in civilization at last!" Sydney smiled.

"Was it that bad? Did they hurt you?"

"I don't remember anything, they must have drugged me." She stated.

"I don't get it, they drugged you, and how could they get the code?" Will asked.

"Oh Will, stop it! She back and that all that cares. And I'm giving the back my share of anger, I made sure they weren't going to send you away anymore." Francie said.

"Don't worry, I'm quitting the bank." 

"What? When did you all of the sudden decided to quit the bank?" Will asked stunned, Francie swatted him with her arm, surprised.

"What are you talking about? This is great! We've been nagging her over and over!" Francie smiled and sat down on the bed and held Sydney's hand. "I am so happy that you are back." Francie gave Sydney a lasting hug and didn't let go of her hand.

"Don't worry about getting a job, I'm sure that the restaurant would need some employees." Sydney gasped and smiled at Francie's enthusiastic face.

"No! You got the restaurant!"

There was some talk about Francie's plan on managing a restaurant for a brief moment in time before Sydney left. Francie had been questionable and Sydney had been supportive but now, it was great idea for Francie since she was left with no future plans. And Sydney now had a fall back. No more SD-6 or CIA, not even K- Directorate. She will be finished and have a wonderful life out of intelligence. She was done.

"Yes, it was suppose to be a surprise, throw in a few hints. Well, things didn't work out the way I wanted to so…well I put the effort and well am I the manager of the newest night club in Los Angeles."

"I am so happy for you, Francie that's great."

"I know and that's not even-"

"May I interrupt?" All eyes followed the voice from doorway. And all eyes came onto her boss, Mr. Sloane. She smiled briefly and asked Francie and Will just to give them a second alone. They walked out half agreeing and he entered the room with a vase of yellow daises. 

"I want to give you appreciation for all you done for the agency. The whole group at SD-6 was very concern, and we didn't stop searching for you. Your one of our greatest assets and it would be a shame to loose you. We'll make sure who ever did this to you is put to justice."

Sydney smiled, not out of happiness but the surrealism of this situation. She had nothing against Sloane personally, but she knew he was a bad guy. But now, after all she handled in the last month, it was one big joke. She didn't care. She stopped caring. 

"Thanks for the flowers, they are beautiful." He handed her the flowers and she gave them back, he put them aside and came back to her bedside.

"The whole agency is praying for your recovery." He said. She looked at him and nodded, then smiled looking out the window.

"I missed winter didn't I?" The spring had set in and the beautiful birds were back chirping.

"They was a little storm a few days ago, power lines were out and the city was on alert."

"I had forgotten how the sun looked, five weeks in a dark cell, and to see the sun. It's just amazing." She rubbed her forehead and settled back down on her pillow. "You want to know what happened," Sydney thought.

"Yes, I think it would be best. Jack gave us some details, but it would be best if you told us yourselves."

"Before I do, I was thinking here. Wondering why I do this. I told myself I do it for my country, a sense dignity and pride. When you and I both know it not that," He looks up, wondering, searching if the truth is hidden in her statement. "It was a sense of family and belonging. I do remember a time when I wanted to be a spy, to have an adventurous life. But now I have experienced it, seen the entire world though aliases. I think I am finally done. I want to leave the SD-6."

He didn't know how to respond, but he knew the time had come that she had left.

"I understand, after an ordeal like this. But you know you are always welcome to come back to SD-6." He knew she would pass. "Dixon will come back tomorrow, since he in a mission in Peru, and take your statement." He touched her hand and gave it a light squeeze and smiled. He walked out and left Will and Francie to come back in, with another doctor.

"Hello, Miss Bristow. I'm your doctor advisory. Which means I'm not a doctor but soon will be." The joke, which wasn't funny, made Sydney laugh. He tried, he really did. "I'm Dr. Walters."

"What up doc?" 

"You'll be well enough to leave the hospital in two days. You recover quite well, and the rest was probably needed. I want to advise you that we were almost afraid of blood over transfusion, since on your record it states that you are A+ which you're not."

"No, that's impossible." Sydney vastly decided.

"You're B+ Miss Bristow."

"No, my father A- and my mother was O+ that would be impossible…wouldn't it?" Sydney began to cry when she thought about it. Her palms ached, her arms shook, and her stomach became knotted. She didn't want to think and she didn't want to know. But it was implied, it was right there in front of her face. Francie's mouth hanged opened and Will was still thinking it over with great concentration.

"Syd…wouldn't that mean-" Francie began.

"My father…isn't my biological father."

**A/N: Dah, Dah, Dan! You hate me don't you? Reviews are still nice to have.******


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